MODERN SHEEP: BREEDS AND MANAGEMENT. 



Sweepstakes, and seventeen pounds, eight ounces from his heaviest 

 shearing ewe. 



For the next thirty years we find a gradual increase in the 

 weight of fleece, and in the latter part of this period considerable 

 records are obtainable, as during the decade from 1880 to 1890 

 public shearings under association auspices were held regularly. 

 From these records we find the heaviest shearing ram to have 

 been one bred by A. A. Wood of Michigan, his fleece weighing 

 forty-four pounds, four ounces, at three years old, with a 'gross 

 weight of carcass of 156 pounds. This was in 1884. The heaviest 

 ewe fleece on record we find to have been shorn from one bred by 



Australian Type of Merino. 



N. A. Wood, of Michigan, in 1890, weighing twenty-eight pounds, 

 five ounces, with carcass weight of 132 pounds. 



With the increase in weight of fleece, which was necessarily 

 accompanied by increase of density and of oil, we find improve- 

 ment in head and leg covering, and in evenness of fleece on all parts 

 of the body. Other minor improvements were also accomplished 

 along with the one great advance. With the decline in popularity 

 of the Vermont Merino, which is the type of Merino carrying the 

 most wrinkles and the heaviest fleeces, we fail to find any records of 

 public shearings, and interest in this type of sheep which had been 

 improved so rapidly and so greatly along the lines desired, grad- 

 ually diminished until now their breeders number but a handful 

 compared with former days; and many of them are old breeders 

 living in Vermont, New York, Ohio, Michigan, and Illinois. 



The predominant idea of the breeders who made the great 

 improvement was per cent, of wool to live weight, and this was 

 best produced by securing an excess of wrinkles and oil in the 

 fleece. A dense, heavy fleece was the desideratum. To name the 

 breeders who made valuable contributions along this line would re- 



